Newly merged housing association censured by regulator for fire safety failings

In the notice, the regulator said fire risk assessments for “a large number” of YCH properties had passed their review date, and a handful did not have a risk assessment at all. YCH has confirmed 92 were out of date.

“The majority of these properties had been overdue for around eight months, but a small number had been overdue for more than a year,” the regulator said. “The issue affected hundreds of YCH tenants.”

It also said it had “concerns” about the quality of the assessments and that hazards had not been fully identified. It said there was “limited evidence” to demonstrate that necessary actions identified in the risk assessment had been carried out.

The issue was discovered during the merger process when a member of staff from Coast & Country was providing support to YCH’s health and safety team. The organisation then brought in extra staff to deal with the issue.

“The regulator concluded that YCH had failed to regularly review its FRAs [fire risk assessments], that it had lacked assurance that the correct risks had been identified, and the relevant actions to manage the identified risks had been completed,” the regulator said.

“Fire is self-evidently important because of the potentially fatal consequences. In this case, the regulator has concluded that the risk of serious harm was demonstrated because a large number of tenants were potentially exposed to an unknown risk of danger from fire. Therefore the risk of serious detriment has existed.”

Despite the breach, Beyond Housing’s governance remained at a compliant G2 rating - the rating YCH had before the issues were discovered.

To date, 115 of the 143 fire risk assessments required have been completed, with the remaining 28 due for completion before the end of the year.

James Hayward, chair of Beyond Housing, said: “We take fire safety very seriously and it is disappointing we have found ourselves in this situation. I want to reassure all our customers that Beyond Housing considers their safety, and that of its staff, as its greatest priority.”

Owen Ingram, the former acting chief executive of YCH and current acting chief executive of Beyond Housing said: “Whilst this is a serious issue, we acted quickly to ensure the safety and well-being of residents, reported the situation to the regulator and evaluated all areas concerned."

The organisation has appointed Rosemary Du Rose, currently executive director at Home Group, to take over as chief executive in early 2019.

It becomes the latest in a clutch of housing associations – including Knowsley Housing Trust and Arun District Council – to breach the Home Standard over fire safety since the Grenfell Tower disaster in June last year.

In other judgements published today, Teign Housing was returned to a top rating of G1 for governance following its previous downgrade for a saga in which tenants were overcharged for rent.

The 3,200-home south Devon-based landlord was downgraded in 2017 for “errors in rent setting” which resulted in “a significant number of tenants being overcharged”.

Teign was returned to the top rating after reimbursing affected tenants, making a voluntary payment to the local authority and commissioning an external review of its business.

A spokesperson for the landlord said: "At the time of the downgrade last year, the then-HCA [Homes and Communities Agency] acknowledged our ‘swift and decisive’ handling of rent payments and the measures we were putting in place to ensure no future error. We have since made significant changes in our processes, and today’s judgement reflects that and the one-off nature of this issue.

"We have not only strengthened our rent calculation work, but used the opportunity to learn wider lessons and apply additional checks to all our processes. This will guide our decisions and framework in the future.”

In a further narrative judgement, the regulator also maintained Hyde Housing’s V2 rating for financial viability but changed the basis for the grade.

The 49,000-home housing association was downgraded to V2 last year due to an expected one-off charge relating to a loan restructure. It maintains that compliant rating, which the regulator said is now due to the need to manage the risk resulting from its exposure to open market sales.

It said the London-based landlord has “appropriate controls and mitigations in place to manage the material risks identified”.

The regulator also published narrative judgements for Connexus and Kinsman Housing, which are covered in reports here and here.

A total of 47 providers received ratings from the regulator today, listed in the table below.